Fair Share Health Care.

As you probably know, I am a supporter of the HUSKY healthcare plan. This healthcare system has provided health care coverage to tens of thousands of people in our state. Most of these people are working people and their children. It is a good program, and I will continue to defend it and work to expand it.

Unfortunately, there are some some large companies that are misusing this system to push costs, unfairly, onto taxpayers. These are companies that are profitable enough that they could, like most employers, provide the health insurance that their workers need – but they don't. Legislative research (2005-R-0017 and 2005-R-0129) done at my request found that these profitable corporations choose to push these costs onto taxpayers – because they pay their employees so little that these workers and their children are eligible for HUSKY healthcare.

Just one company, for example, is responsible for more than $5 million in costs to taxpayers because they pay their workers so little and provide so many with no health insurance. This company is one of the largest and most profitable corporations in the world.

If passed, the Health Security Act would require employers with more than 5,000 workers in the state to either provide health insurance for their full-time workers or pay the state the amount that it costs the state to provide healthcare coverage to these workers.

Together with the HUSKY plan and the proposal to allow small businesses to buy health insurance through the state employee healthcare system, the Health Security Act is a part of the emerging picture for how we will ensure that everyone in Connecticut will have healthcare coverage.

Click here to read about read about my current work to expand healthcare access.